Three Views to a Secret
by leave me light
Summary: Three conversations Elizabeth has on topics long overdue. Essentially an Elizabeth fic, but with tendencies towards Sparky.
1. First Nothing learned

"Hey. I see nothing has changed around here." There was no mistaking that voice and yet it had to be a mistake, some colossal and cruel trick of mind that refused to let up even as she lifted her eyes from the computer screen in search of its source. Her face wasn't even able to convey any disbelief, just a hint of anger at the yet another method of torture this galaxy had found.

"What, not glad to see me?" he was now approaching her, with his usual slightly bouncy gait, as if all this was completely natural.

"But you're dead?" the question had to be asked, no matter how ridiculous it sounded.

He smiled and with another heart-constricting bang she recognized the familiar laughter lines as the slightly mocking smile reached his blue eyes. "Are you sure?" he asked, shrugging. "Maybe it's you that is dead? How would you know? Have you ever been dead before?"

She now tilted her head, eyes narrowed. She guessed that was always a possibility, except, "Wouldn't I notice if I die?"

"I don't know. Would you?" He was playing hard to get, but the way he theatrically raised his eyebrows already pointed her towards the answer. Chances were she was still alive and well. But just to humor the ghost, or whoever he was, she asked again,

"So am I?"

"Maybe. Or maybe you're just hallucinating because you have been working 70 hours straight," he didn't miss a beat.

Her head snapped up in protest, "I have n…" He only laughed shamelessly, not even a pretense of his former deference left.

"Come on. You really think you can get away with lying to a ghost?" The flicker in his eyes was so intense that she had to look away, hearing him continue, "Or a figment of your own imagination, whichever I happen to be? Or a doctor, for that matter?"

"Fine," she grudgingly admitted. "Maybe I have been working a lot lately. But that's just because there's a lot to do around here. You don't think that I am inventing work for myself, do you?"

Suddenly there was that old familiar softness in his eyes again. He sighed and sat in the chair opposite her desk. "No, lass, but you can't really be thinking that you'll ever get to a point when there is no more work left to be done. You know as well as I do that you will end much sooner than the work will. Especially if you keep this up," he waved his finger at the computer. "As a matter of fact, who's to say you are not actually asleep right now, drooling into your laptop keyboard in an undignified manner?"

"I'm not asleep on my desk," she reasoned, "I am sitting here, at my desk, right now, am I not?"

"Yes," his nod was to the side and amused, "talking to someone you couldn't possibly be talking to, are you not?" To that she threw her head back and laughed out loud.

"Point taken, Carson. Now, how can I help you?" Everything, she had found out long ago, has a reason. You have to learn to hear and listen and see even the things that you really don't want to, because otherwise, later, when you start to put the whole picture together, you might actually discover some vital pieces missing. Knowing, being in possession of all the information you can possibly be in possession of is what gives you the advantage, what gives you the deciding edge when push comes to shove. There was a part of her brain that said that she should be freaked out by this. She didn't believe in ghosts, but she did believe in seeing them – she believed that it was the point where one needed to turn to a doctor. Ironically enough, the ghost she was seeing actually was her doctor. So, she thought, she might as well hear its diagnosis.

"I believe that might not be the right question to ask right now." Carson laced his fingers together and looked at her pointedly.

"Meaning?" her question was accompanied by her eyebrows rising, creating parallel creases on her forehead.

"Well, as you kindly pointed out, it seems that I am dead," he said impossibly matter-of-factly. "So that ship has, apparently, sailed…" He completely failed to heed her sharp intake of breath. "You know, I really would have given you more credit." He now seemed almost sad. A familiar bolt of pain shot through her heart and made its way somewhere in her gut.

"Carson, are you blaming _me_ for what happened?" she asked carefully.

"Oh, no, love, not that," he was quick to dispel her fears. "It's just that… I somehow thought that I meant more… Never mind," he shook his head.

Confused, Elizabeth leaned closer to him over the desk. "Meant m…?" His implications both hurt and scared her. "Carson, what on Earth are you talking about?"

"Care to rephrase that?" he asked, but she was in no mood for word games.

"Not, particularly, no," her headshake was aggressive and agitated. "In fact, I feel mildly insulted by what you seem to be suggesting. You were one of my best friends. There's a gaping hole in my life at the spot where you used to be." Hearing her own words out loud, her demeanor changed. He was here, talking to her, she realized. In whatever form, even if she had conjured him up herself, it was still just one more chance, and she suddenly didn't know whether knowing that made it hurt less or more. So she just silently, almost in whisper, asked, "How could you have meant more?"

"It hurt?" he asked, gaze locked on her.

She winced, "Of course. It still does." Did he need to be convinced? Did she?

His next question completely threw her again. "Then how come everything is still the same?"

"How come I am still doing my job? Is that what you mean?"

He shook his head, supporting his elbows on the arms of the chair and his chin on his clasped palms.

"Then what?" she frowned. Why are you here, Carson, was what he wanted to ask, to shout, but she knew that it would have been too easy.

Carson sighed, shooting her an almost worried look. "You know, for a smart woman, you are sometimes unbelievably thick."

"Gee, thanks." Her eyebrows were again a centimeter higher than they were intended to be. "You were nicer when you were alive."

"Indeed, and a lot more patient as well," his chuckle was sad. Tilting his head slightly, he launched the next question at her, "Elizabeth, don't you have any regrets?"

"What kind of a question is that? Of course I do." He didn't blame her for what had happened, but it sure felt like he was accusing her of something. Or maybe not even that, maybe he was just disappointed, in that mild forgiving manner that only Carson could be and at that moment Elizabeth knew that she would give just about anything not to be the source of that disappointment. If she could only figure out what she had done wrong…

"Like what?" His questions were not growing less cryptic.

"Jesus, you want me to list all the regrets I have had in my life?" she asked in order to buy time. Regrets, regrets, regrets… The fact that she was unable to protect her friends, to protect these people that she was supposed to lead was not even a regret. It was a burden, a nightmare she had to learn to live with… More time, more time, more time… "Well, for starters I shouldn't have had that chocolate cake at dinner…"

"Funny," Carson really was not buying it. Can't get away with lying to a ghost… "I meant me. Any regrets surfacing after my death?" That question cut through her like a knife. If this person sitting across from her really was just something she had made up in her own overworked, exhausted brain then how could it be so cruel to her?

"You're gone, Carson," she had to pull up emergency resources in order to speak louder than a choked whisper. "There are times when I walk into the infirmary and still expect you to greet me, offer me a cup of tea. I'll never get to laugh with you again. What do you think?" The look in her eyes had to have been enough to break anyone's heart, but Carson didn't allow himself to be deterred.

"So why has nothing changed?" he asked instead, clearly starting to grow impatient.

Well, she was impatient too. "What? What did you think would change? I don't understand."

"Oh, for God's sake, Elizabeth," he hissed, and, somewhere in the margins of her mind, she registered that this was the most irritated she had ever seen him. "You should know better now, even if, for some reason, you didn't before." She must have seemed like a child being punished for a crime she did not comprehend, because, exasperatedly, he sighed, "Don't look at me like that. Somewhere deep inside you 

must know what I am talking about. Because if you don't understand, if you really don't understand then I don't know what I am doing here."

"People die, Carson, out here more than in most places," she blurted out, trying to figure out why it was that Carson was so adamant at his demand for change. Then, realizing the actual words she had used to get away from his scrutiny, she muttered a shocked apology, "I'm sorry, that must have sounded harsh, considering…"

"Yes, yes, my poor dead feelings… ," Carson dismissed the insinuation, concentrating on something else instead. "At least you acknowledge the fact that people die. That's a start, I suppose."

It felt like she was getting closer to the truth. "A start to what?" she asked, almost hopefully. For a moment he stayed silent, looking at her over his interlaced fingers as if trying to figure out the best way to formulate his thoughts.

"There are so many things in life that you can't change, dear, so why would you not do anything about the things that you can?" he finally asked, his inherent kindness making its way back into the look in his eyes. "You know, it didn't have to be me. It could have been anyone. It still could be." He gave her a moment to consider this before elaborating, "During the time you waste here debating with a ghost, any number of people might get wiped straight out of your life. Are you ready for that? Really prepared? Because, as you said, people die…"

"Wh…?" a flicker of a fear that maybe his appearance now was some sort of an awful foreboding streaked across her mind, but she refused to pay it any further thought, instead considering his words. Change? What could she do? "I mean, I can't change death…," she shrugged helplessly.

Carson sat up straighter, as if in anticipation of some sort of a breaking point. "No, Elizabeth," he said with an emphasis, "you can't, but you can change life."

"I can change life…," she tried to fit that concept into her mind, tried to understand what that really meant.

There was an indescribable peace in Carson's smile. "Yes, remember, that spectacular crazy flash of light that you're still holding on to and I'm not?"

"But how?" she asked, fully aware that all of the sudden her voice sounded small, almost panicky. Was there really a way to make all of this not hurt so much? To stop carefully balancing everything she had to lose against all the things she had to gain?

"You do realize how daft a question that is?" Carson gently teased, as if to shake her out of her momentary brain freeze.

She took a deep breath, hoping that her thoughts would find a way to step off this merry-go-round and find their proper place and order again. Daft? Indeed. "Yes, I guess, it's just that… I wouldn't know where to begin…," she looked at Carson again, searching for some guidance.

"Let's put it this way…," he started and she almost felt as if a soothing hand had been laid on top of hers resting on the table, but when she looked there was nothing there. Carson, meanwhile, went on, "If it would all end tomorrow, what would be the thing that you'd regret most? That you didn't finish reading all these reports on your desk? Or is there something else that you should have done, but never quite got there?" His eyes were soft and encouraging. She felt like a child, taking her first hesitant steps.

"You mean people, don't you? You mean… love?" That word, how could that word suddenly seem so strange in her mouth?

"It's not important what I mean," he stated. "What do _you_ mean? What would be your biggest regret? And why would you let it be a regret at all?" The pause he made was laden with expectation. And then he asked, "You know what I miss the most about living? All those wonderful tangible options."

**xxxxx**


	2. Second What's the problem?

He was already there when she entered the balcony, balancing precariously on the ledge and though the sudden influx of ghosts to her life didn't really throw her like it probably should have, she had to admit that this one she just didn't get.

"Really?" she raised her eyebrows in harmony with the rise of her intonation. "Now they sent you, of all people?"

He slowly turned his head to face her, as if only now noticing her presence. Frowning, he asked, "What do you mean by "they"?" And then, keeping the intense look of his piercing blue eyes still on her, added, "Or by "sent", for that matter?"

""They" as in whoever… whatever is making you guys pop up everywhere," she pushed her chin up, not willing to take this nonsense from someone who wasn't even really there.

"Us guys?" he shrugged, seeming only mildly interested.

"Yes, or are you telling me that Carson stopping by the other day was simply a coincidence?" It was a bit strange to come straight out on the offense with this man she had barely gotten to know when he was alive, but, truth be told, she had never really managed to find the time or the will to learn to particularly like him. And his obvious attitude problem now that he was dead did not help matters much. Or the fact that she was now finding herself passing judgment on the attitudes of dead people.

"Carson?" he seemed to have trouble placing that name. "Carson who? Oh, you mean that little doctor who spoke like his mouth was full of mashed potatoes? What does he have to do with me?"

"He's Scottish," she sighed, already tired of this conversation. "And besides coming by to see me, there's one more important, yet unlikely thing that he has in common with you."

"Oh," a sly smile spread across his face, "the doc also got himself whacked out here, huh?" If that had not been exactly what had happened to her conversation partner himself, at quite a vital stage of their expedition, if he hadn't, back then, been willing to risk his own life for others without so much as a blink of an eye, she might have really taken offense with his flippant comment. As things stood now, however…

"Yes, he is also," she made a sweeping motion with her hand in his general direction, "dead."

"Sorry," he shrugged, turning his gaze back out to the sea. "Haven't come across him."

She briefly considered the possibility that his presence had nothing to do with her at all, but, taking into account all the particulars (Carson, for one, but also the fact that she was only one of two people who frequented this balcony and, considering everything that had happened, she certainly hoped that he was not there to see John; or at least that those two had settled whatever outstanding issues there might have been left between them a long time ago), discarded the idea. Instead, she resolved to wait the situation out.

"I never got to see this," he finally said, without turning. "Atlantis on the surface. It's huge."

"And beautiful, isn't it?" a soft smile crept across her face. "We still haven't managed to get to all the parts."

"Damn, the strategic defense of this thing must be a military nightmare," he announced and she couldn't help noticing the thinly veiled glee in his voice. "Maybe it's a good thing I got out while I did."

"Well, I would think, considering how exactly you got out..," she irritably blurted out before she could stop herself. That was a low blow, even in these circumstances. He had not been a bad man, had been, from what she could tell, a pretty excellent soldier and getting your years mercilessly sucked out of you by a Wraith was not the kind of death one would wish on one's worst enemy, really. "I'm sorry," she offered. "That was uncalled for."

He nodded, accepting her apology, his whole demeanor revealing a simple truth – in the end it didn't matter which one of them had the upper hand because, whichever way you looked at it, she was the winner – she was still here, still alive and he was not. Which brought up another question.

"You haven't been back since?"

"No," he shrugged. "Didn't really see a point."

"So, why now?" she prodded on, eager to use this opportunity to bring clarity to the situation.

He looked at her absentmindedly, considering her question. "I don't know," he finally admitted. "Tying up loose ends, I guess." There was nothing she could add to this. The loose ends couldn't have had anything to do with her. Maybe it was the city. Maybe it was John after all.

"So, how's he doing in my job?" he asked, as if reading her mind.

"John?" She was slightly thrown by his bluntness. "I mean, Colonel Sheppard?"

"Sheppard, yes," he nodded with a smirk. "I guess he must be managing -- you're still here. Colonel, you say?"

"Yes, he got promoted when we finally managed to find someone with the authority to do that," she smirked back. "He's doing great. He has passion," she went on, the smirk softening without her even realizing it.

"That he certainly has," the disapproval was blatant in his voice. "His overflowing passion was what scared me most about him. The first time I laid eyes on him I was sure that he would get us all killed."

The first time I laid eyes on him, she thought, remembering John's frantic stare when he lay rigidly in that glowing control chair, I thought he would be the one to save us all. Yes, an impossibly small voice in her head piped in, it wasn't until about the third time that you thought that this would be the man you'd love. She ignored it. And then, before she managed to shake herself out of that reverie, she heard him chuckle and, learning what he had to say, contended that dead people's sense of humor was a bit too macabre for her tastes.

"Kind of ironic, really, that he ended up being the one that put that bullet through my heart." His hand reached up to rub the left side of his chest, as if there was still some kind of a mark there. This movement made her realize that, other than the reference to the bullet hole, he appeared to her not as he must have looked like at death – dried up, wrinkly and brittle – but as she had last seen him. Still, ironic?

"I really doubt that Colonel Sheppard sees it that way," she quipped.

"Well, _I_ really doubt he is losing much sleep over the whole thing," he dismissed her disapproval. "What?" his shoulders rose perceptibly. "What's with the look? It's ancient history. I admit that there wasn't much love lost between us, but he did what he had to do. He's a soldier, he knew it."

"So, what? You win some, you lose some?" The callousness of the concept was really testing her diplomatic nerve.

"Exactly," he nodded, going on to explain, "The important thing is to win more in the total tally." She had never imagined that kind of a math even existed.

"You do realize these are people's lives you are talking about here?" she asked him incredulously, only to be patronizingly dismissed again.

"No need to get overly sentimental, doc."

She didn't think she was being sentimental at all. She believed that people's right to life, right to not get blown up, enslaved or sucked dry was the most fundamental right of all. In fact, to her that was the whole raison d'être behind the Atlantis mission. And, come to think of it, the only reason Sumner had been beamed into that Wraith ship was that he was looking for a safe place to evacuate the expedition members from the collapsing Atlantis. There was, of course, the chance that it had all been just a job for him, but even then, the price he had ended up paying had been kind of stiff. No pun intended.

"Okay, let me put it this way," she tried to find a way to break through to him, "you do realize it's _your_ life you are talking about?"

"Yeah, well, that part _was_ a bit of a shame," he admitted with a wry grin. "But it's not like that kind of a possible outcome hadn't occurred to me. We were on the front lines the minute we stepped through that gate."

Of all the mindsets to embark on that journey with… "You stepped through the gate thinking you would die?"

Sumner simply shrugged. "You have to admit, there was always a pretty good chance that I would."

"Well, that's certainly…," she started, but suddenly could not find any words to describe the thoughts that kind of an attitude sparked in her. "I don't even know what that is," she conceded, shaking her head.

"Oh, come on!," he was almost laughing, as unbelievable as that kind of a reaction seemed to her. "Don't you start judging me! It's not like you're that heavily invested in your own life either," he pointed an accusing finger at her.

She suddenly found herself on the defense again, with the fleeting thought that this might be a whole lot easier if she had any idea what the position was that she was defending. "What's that supposed to mean?!" she testily quipped. Well, they do say that offense is supposedly the best defense…

Sumner remained almost irritatingly unmoved. "No one who had anything important to leave behind would have ever come on this mission. That includes you, Boss Woman." He added, now blatantly mocking her, "And yes, I am talking about people's lives here, again."

He was, of course, right, which did nothing but only fuel her indignant self-justifying anger. "That's not true!," she almost shouted at him. "I had…"

"What?" the mocking tone was still all there, among other things reminding her that in this particular power play she really had nothing to bargain with. "A token warm body to fall next to at night?"

"It wasn't…," she made another feeble attempt to regain her footing, but, however she had planned to finish that sentence, he mercilessly overrode it.

"No, it wasn't, was it? Wasn't an issue. Wasn't a match to all this," he made a grand sweeping gesture with his arm and if his demeanor had not been so distant and cold, she might have recognized the hint of sadness in his voice. "Was it really even a choice?"

Now all she recognized was an accusation.

"Don't you dare make it sound like I don't care about people!"

"Threatening a ghost, are you?" he simply deadpanned, letting her know loud and clear that her tactics of intimidation, if that had, indeed, been what she was going for, weren't getting her anywhere. "Besides," he went on, "I never said that you don't care about people. If I wasn't so far beyond that stuff, I might even take offense with your suggestion that _I _didn't. Do you think that I just ran to the first bloodsucker I saw and begged it to release me from this burden of hanging out with the mankind?"

Silently, somewhat ashamed of herself and her outburst, she shook her head. He shut his eyes for a second, letting her know that he, again, accepted her apology, even though she hadn't even voiced it.

"You care plenty about people," he said, as if to meet her half-way. "If I had to guess, I'd say that it's the caring about individuals part that is a bit tricky for you."

"Meaning?" Angry outbursts hadn't really done much to help her so she decided to adopt patience as her virtue of choice. Unfortunately, this was the moment he chose to get deep and cryptic.

"Love is not a victory march…," he mumbled, if it was possible to mumble pointedly. She immediately recognized the line but had trouble believing it had been delivered to her by this particular entity in this particular context.

"Seriously?" she asked, quickly checking her tone so as to not come off condescending. "You're quoting Jeff Buckley to me?"

"I am, actually," his blue eyes threw an approving spark at her. He nodded in appreciation, "Impressive."

"Well, hallelujah!" she sighed, smiling, thankful for the moment of solidarity amidst this battle.

"Yes, but that's the way you think about it, isn't it?" And the moment was over, throwing her right back into the jungle of words and innuendo. She reacted almost without thinking.

"What, that all I've ever learned from love is how to shoot somebody who outdraws me?" she blurted out, and only then did it occur to her that instantly knowing which part of the song he had meant was odd and, all things considered, somewhat disturbing. Why not the part about the secret chord that David played to please the Lord?

Still, he just nodded and smiled at her empathically. Her instinctive guess had been correct. But then again, she strongly felt that they both must have been wrong. That line applying to her would have somehow implied that she was broken, that the way her priorities had panned out was not a choice she had made, not her destiny that she was determinedly fulfilling, but simply her cunning way of getting out of having to deal with something. Surely she wasn't that person? She couldn't have been. Surely she was perceptive enough to notice if she was cheating herself out of something?

"I'm not scared of love…," she declared, almost surprised that her voice sounded a lot more certain in this statement than she herself felt.

"Of course not," he agreed with her, suspiciously easily. "Cause what's there to be scared of?"

"Nothing…," in order to escape this confusion she decided not to get distracted by her suspicions. Still, something made her leave the back door ajar. "Though, I could see how some people might feel that it makes them…"

"Vulnerable?" he offered helpfully.

"I suppose," she winced. "And… distracted." She shot him a hesitantly challenging look.

"Hey, I'm with you on this one," he raised both his arms in lieu of a white flag. "That's why I thought that Sheppard's wishy-washy passion was dangerous."

"John's not…," to accuse John of being too soft was just vile and she was about to race to arms again, but he gladly surrendered even before she managed to quite get there.

"I know – he shot me!" his expression was now almost theatrical, but at the same time oddly, believably, sincere. "Point blank! And for that I am eternally grateful to him. Literally," he reached out his arm and 

dramatically sliced through Elizabeth's midsection, "eternally. You can thank him for me, should my person ever come up in a discussion." There was a moment of thoughtful silence but then he couldn't help adding, "He's still too emotionally involved, though."

Calmer now, having realized that the single goal of his presence was not to randomly push her buttons till she cracked and collapsed in bitter tears or threw herself over the ledge, she gave herself a chance to seriously consider his statement. "Just because he is not the kind of soldier you were does not make him a bad soldier," she finally concluded.

"Yeah, I guess not," Sumner conceded, shrugging. "It just makes him a poorly manageable one. And, seeing that he is the ranking officer now, I guess that makes it…," and the boyish glee was back in his voice, "your problem."

Well, at least here Sumner was colossally off, she happily thought. "John's not a problem."

"You sure about that?" he teased, but now it seemed to her that the intent to bend her against John had somehow disappeared. So she decided to be honest and straightforward with him.

"He's good at what he does," she declared, smiling. "And he does things for the right reasons."

He tilted his head and delivered a blatantly leading question. "Are you saying that his emotions _don't_ make him vulnerable?"

She had to acknowledge that she had no one to blame for walking into that trap. Her own comment, as impersonal as she had tried to make it sound, had introduced the concept of vulnerability into this debate. And the irrepressible need she had to defend John's honor (Oh, man, the realization made its way somewhere to the margins of her mind, that comment really came back to bite me…) had caused her to completely forget to tend to her guard. So she hadn't really left herself any other option than to admit the obvious and try to spin it to some more favorable light.

"Maybe they do," she conceded, "but that's not necessarily a bad thing."

"How's that?" he curiously leaned towards her.

"The people he leads would do anything for him," she slowly said, the thought formulating in her head while she was delivering it, "because they know that he would do anything for every single one of them. He inspires them."

"So?" he gave her a chance to really think through the implications of what she had just spelled out. It was all there, she had to admit. The dirty laundry had certainly been dragged out of the dark corners of her subconscious and laid out in the light of day. She leaned in to inspect it just as eagerly as he did.

"Yeah…," she sighed in surrender, her eyes begging Sumner to at least spare her dignity.

He magnanimously allowed her that, his obvious question giving her space to confess. "But you are fine with love anyway, right?"

"To be quite honest," she complied with the silent pact that she had just concluded, "just between a woman and a ghost, I might have a bit of a problem with… letting go."

"Doc, you wouldn't be here… None of us probably would have even made it to the galaxy if you weren't a bit of a control freak." It was his chance to demonstrate that, whatever his character flaws, he never refrained from giving credit when credit was due. "But the trouble with people like you…," he chuckled in self-deprecation, "like us, I guess, is that we tend to sometimes be a bit blind to matters that don't necessarily fit with the way we see things."

"Deep," she nodded in amused appreciation, finally recognizing them as equals.

"Yes, well, I have had some free time in my hands lately to ponder," again he laughed.

"And what have you come up with?" she asked, suddenly getting the feeling that she was thus introducing the punch line of this whole conversation.

"That it's okay to be scared," his voice was suddenly unexpectedly mellow and he turned his gaze back out to the sea, as if searching for words in the ripples of the water, "but it's not okay to run away from the things you are scared of. For you can bet your life, and it has to be yours," he was looking at her again (and she could have sworn that the ghost of Colonel Marshall Sumner winked at her), "because I don't think mine is valid currency anymore, that eventually they will catch you and bite you in the ass."

**xxxxx**


	3. Third Dare to fall

"Dad?"

She blinked, propping herself up on an elbow in her bed. In the dim light cast by the three moons that shone in through her window she could clearly make out the silhouette of her father in the armchair at the foot of her bed.

"Hello, Eliza," he quietly said and feelings she had thought had been lost to her years ago started their slow ascent from somewhere in her gut. Her father had been the only one to ever use that nickname for her, to use any nickname, really. She had never been adamantly against having her name endearingly shortened (as long as it wasn't 'Lizzie'), but somehow nothing had ever stuck. Except for this one, the name she had insisted to be called by after he took her to see "Pygmalion" when she was just a girl. And he was the only one who ever remembered.

"You have really gone out of your way to become impossible to locate, haven't you?" he mockingly admonished her and she could almost hear the old familiar guttural laughter in his voice. "Another galaxy, Eliza?"

"I would have left instructions…," she sleepily mumbled.

He got up from the chair and walked to the window. Now the moonlight uncovered his full profile to her and in her half-awake state she was still emotionally disconnected enough to note how years distort the perspective. Her father had been barely five years older than she was now when he died, so here, in this room, they were basically the same age. Yet, suddenly she felt young and confused again, felt as if the last seventeen years had gone by in a heartbeat, a time not nearly enough to get over the sudden and unfair loss.

"I miss you," she simply said to the figure at her window and her father turned slowly, a soft smile on his lips.

"I know," he answered, tilting his head. "This doesn't really make it better."

"This?" she sat up on the bed, gathering her knees under her chin.

"My coming here. You… seeing me. Because then I'll be gone and you will think that it wasn't real," he stopped for a moment to give her time to catch up. "And in a way it isn't real, because I cannot really be there for you. Not the way you'd like me to. Not the way I'd want to." Her father had always had an uncanny faith in telling the truth, in calling things by their proper names and though sometimes, as a child, she had passionately hated the way it had dragged her out of her daydreams and fairytales, had made it so incredibly difficult to just believe in things for no credible reason whatsoever (and made it impossible for her to engage in the usual completely unfeasible playground boasting), she had come to appreciate it later in life, understood the edge that a clear vision and an analytical mind could give a person. But right at that moment, still drowsy and not in complete control of herself, she just felt that she didn't want to know. Didn't want to know whether it was real or not. Didn't want to know if it would help with the pain or just bring back the things that she had managed to deal with already. Didn't want 

to know whether his appearance, after the two encounters she had already had, meant that something was really wrong, that things were even more critical than they usually were.

Her father was here, standing just a few feet from her. Her father.

"Then why?" she sighed and supported her temple on her knees.

"I need to know…," he started, then raised his hand to rub his brow with the heel of it and tried again, "I need to know that you are okay."

"Why would I not be okay?" she frowned. "Or why would I be less okay than I was right after your death or after I was taken hostage that time in Niger or after…," she trailed off.

"Because you were younger," he shrugged. "And more secure in your ideals, more certain that in the end everything would work out. And as for that last one," he almost smiled again, "yes, the one you didn't say out loud just now -- by the time it actually happened you knew that it was already gone. You were out of that relationship long before he ever was."

"Are you a mind reader?" her chin rose in defiance.

"No, honey, I just know you. Probably better than you know yourself."

"Are you sure about that?" she continued audaciously, by now fully aware that she was being immature. "It's been 17 years, dad."

"Yes, for you it has," he nodded. And for him, she wondered, was time somehow different for him? Or had he just never really left? Had he been the one telling her to stay calm at all those negotiations where she had just wanted to bolt up and storm out slamming the door shut behind her? The one reminding her that everything happens for a reason whenever her mind failed to grasp the cold cruelty of the Universe?

"Dad," she asked in a weak wary voice, "is something really bad about to happen? Are we going to be attacked? Is someone going to die? Am I?" It was all very disconcerting, but she trusted at least her father, real or not, to tell her the truth, to reveal her the reason behind all this.

"Why would you think that?" he replied with a question, obviously somewhat confused.

"Because I have the feeling that I am being warned about something. You're not the first…," not knowing what word to use she just waved her hand up and down,"to come to talk to me."

"I don't know about the others," he shrugged. "And all I really know about the future is that it is constantly changing and too complex to be determined by anybody's single actions."

"So what are you saying?" her head shot up. "That nothing I do here really matters?"

"Eliza, I am saying that _everything_ you do matters," he leaned closer to her for emphasis. "But you are not responsible for everything that happens. The only thing you can take full responsibility for is your own life."

"But I always thought…," she winced again, trying to understand his implications, "I thought that it was important for my life to be about more than just me… I thought that's what you expected of me?"

"I did," he assured her, walking back to the armchair. "And it has been. And nobody could be more proud than I am of you. But you can't neglect to give yourself the things you want others to have."

"Dad, I'm not exactly poor. Or deprived of anything, except for maybe some variety in my diet," she made a feeble stab at humor.

"That is not what I am talking about and you know it," he sat back down and fixed his gaze on her.

"Yes," she conceded. Of course it wasn't as simple as that. Not nearly as light-hearted. "These are choices that I have had to make in life. There's not enough room for it all, not enough time in the day, not enough attention span…" She looked at him and shrugged, wishing he would understand. Nobody can have everything they want. That's just the way it is.

"No, Eliza, I think these are just the choices you have presented yourself with," he sighed. "I think it's my fault. I think I might have given you the impression that being content is the same as being complacent. And now you are stuck with these goals that are so absolute and these impossible standards… I wasn't old enough myself to know how to teach you that if you keep giving without getting anything back then in the end there is nothing left to give."

"I think you are being unfair, Dad," she said, fidgeting with the edge of her sheet. "I am not 20 years old anymore, I have had time to go further from whatever you did or did not teach me, figure out what's important to me and set my own priorities. And I _am_ getting back. There have been countless small victories and a number of pretty big ones and knowing that I have given my contribution to their coming about is unbelievably satisfying."

"Eliza," the way he looked at her still made her feel like a schoolgirl, "do you really think it's normal that in order for you to get any satisfaction in life there has to be a crisis somewhere, the bigger the better?"

And there it was -- her life, dangling in front of her at an odd angle, stripped bare and suddenly strangely small. Her breath caught in her throat and she felt dizzy. This was pathetic, wasn't it? Not only being knocked down from one's high horse in the middle of the night by one's own dead father, but also the fact that she had managed to live to be 38 years old before she discovered that she didn't really know herself at all.

"Have I been doing everything wrong? For the wrong reasons?" her voice had receded to a whisper.

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic," he scoffed. "It's really not pretty and it's completely unbecoming to the leader of an intergalactic expedition. For starters, I was exaggerating. Of course it's not the only thing 

that brings you pleasure. You have friends, remember? And also, your reasons are perfectly fine, admirable even. There's just so much more to life. Why won't you allow yourself to be happy?"

She looked down at her hands that were hugging her knees to her chest and tried to consider the concept of happiness. What did it matter if she was happy? What would it change? Would it have kept Carson alive? Would it make the city stronger? This is pointless, she thought insolently, this is not helping me in any way. But then something truly startling started to creep slowly into her thoughts – wait a minute… I'm not… I really am not… and I'm okay with that?!

He went on with the questions, "You want to change the world don't you? Well, how can that be done without happiness? Do you really think changing the world is about sacrifice, about discipline? Is that the kind of world that you want? One that is afraid to feel?"

"Dad," she said carefully, eyes huge with bewilderment, "I am not happy…" Wow, the sound of her own voice practically knocked her back.

"That's what I said," he seemed a bit confused.

"No, Dad," she raised her eyebrows, staring blankly in front of herself, "I mean, I didn't know. How could I not know something like that?!" Her whole demeanor formed a big question mark.

"Well, apparently…" he started, but it was obvious that he didn't really have any idea what to say to that. It was okay, though, because she was too busy with her own revelation to hear him anyway.

"Damn, they said so many things," Elizabeth shook her head in frustration, "some of them really cryptic and some downright offensive… Why couldn't they just say that?"

"And "they" would be…?" he was clearly a bit thrown by her reaction to his words.

"Carson," she blurted impatiently, "and… and Sumner. Carson went on and on about how I needed to change things before it's too late, that I shouldn't let there be regrets. And Sumner, well, I thought he was just there to piss me off, but in the end it turned out that he wanted to tell me that it's okay to be scared and that I should learn to let go."

"It sounds to me like _that _is exactly what they did say…," he was now almost laughing. She raised her eyes and glared at him, unsure what he meant.

"Happiness, Elizabeth?" it was now his turn to lift his eyebrows. She jumped slightly at his using her full name.

"Yes, Dad, clearly I have no idea what that is or where to look for it," her scoff was a mixture of self-deprecation, defiance and sarcasm.

"Happiness is a feeling, Eliza, remember that. I think it's high time to for you to accept that there are some things in life that you can't think your way out of, you have to feel your way out," his voice was the familiar soft again. "It's high time you let someone teach that to you."

"So what do you suggest? That I just start tweaking with aspects of my life and see what triggers it?" she shook her head, thinking of the enormity of the task her father was setting in front of her.

"Honey," his voice carried over the hint of sadness caused by his inability to touch her, "_It_ is sleeping in Its bed three hallways over, dreaming of you… no, wait, college football… no, you again… oh," he smiled and looked down at his lap in slight embarrassment, "I don't think the father is supposed to witness quite that…" He shook his head as if to clear it of the image. "_It_ carries a candid picture It took of you working behind your desk hidden in the secret compartment in the lining of Its uniform jacket. It looks you in the eye when It's talking to you and at your lips when you are talking to It, hanging on your every word. And sometimes, when It steps through the gate, returning to Atlantis, It sees you up there on the balcony, watching It, and Its breath gets caught in Its throat, because, no matter how many times It has imagined that moment during the mission, the swell of the real thing still manages to catch It off guard…"

"Not a mind-reader, huh?" she asked, but there was a wide smile on her face now.

"Well, maybe just a little…," he returned the smile and the secret was hovering above them in the air, ready to burst open at the seams and bounce off the metal walls of her quarters. "Do you love him?"

She frowned, but the smile remained, now turning a bit bashful, "Dad, that would be absurd! We have never been anything more than friends…" His gaze didn't falter, he just tilted his head a bit.

"You do, don't you?" and it was exactly the kind of question that had the potential to send her running, but this was her dad asking it and he had that expectant, encouraging smile on his face, reflecting back the soft moonlight and the combination of all that gave her the serenity to feel, not think. She averted her eyes for a moment as the image of John made its way into her mind.

"Yes," she slowly nodded, her sight slightly foggy with the emotion. "I guess I do…"

"Then you know where you have to go from here," he contended, getting up from the chair again. Her eyes snapped back at him, a hint of apprehension clearing the fog.

"Dad, I can't, it's not as simple…" she started to protest, but he didn't allow her to get very far.

"Psst," he admonished, putting a finger on his lips. "You can." The nod was authoritative and almost impatient. "Challenge yourself, Eliza. Don't be afraid. You know he'll be there to catch you."

She sighed, nervously biting her lower lip, hanging on to his words for guidance. For a while there was silence in the darkness, allowing their moonlit eyes to say all those things that were too big for words.

Finally, shifting, he lifted his right hand to his chest, splaying it there, palm down. "Remember…," he said quietly, gaze never faltering or leaving her, and tapped twice with his fingers, indicating the place where, under the skin and the ribs the human heart makes the world go round.

**end**


	4. An Added View

**A/N:** Several of my readers seemed to think that this story needed closure. That's what this little piece is. With a pile of sugary fluff on top.

--

The John that faced her once the door had slid open kept one of his eyes closed while the other was staring at her in sleepy, but blatant suspicion. He was bare-feet, wearing only a pair of checkered boxers and a ratty grey t-shirt and his hair looked as if some space-monster had spent the better part of the night dragging him along the hallways of Atlantis by it. Instead of asking her what she was doing there at this ungodly hour, he just slid his palm slowly down his face and shook his head disapprovingly, because his analytical capabilities might have not been their best a moment after being forced out of well-earned slumber, but even he could tell that if she was standing in his doorway shoeless and wearing those seriously baggy and low-hanging pink cotton pants and a flimsy tank top, there was no way she was conducting official business.

"Err… hi," she started, a little too loudly as she obviously hadn't thought this whole thing through. Startling herself, she quickly glanced up and down the empty hallway.

"Mmhmm," he mumbled, trying to convey both his apprehension and desire for her to get on with it.

"There's something…," she tried again, shuffling somewhat anxiously from foot to foot, "… I need to…"

"'Lizabeth…," his grumble wasn't so much an expression of impatience, rather a comment on the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Trying to move the conversation out of the potentially embarrassing realm of the hallway, she leaned over to get a glimpse of his quarters behind him. Seeing what she had come to look for, her eyebrows shot up in relief.

"Is that your uniform jacket hanging on the back of the chair?" she asked, pointing her long lean finger over his shoulder. John narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the finger first and then slowly turning his upper body to follow where it pointed. His jacket was, indeed, hanging from the desk chair.

Not feeling the need to confirm the obvious, he just turned back again and winced. "Why?"

"There's just something I need to, um… check," she blurted and the next thing he knew, she had already pushed past him and made her way to the desk. There was nothing else left for him to do than let the door close and turn to see what she was doing.

By the time he figured out her goal, it was already too late to save himself. Elizabeth was handling his jacket in a very determined manner, patting down and rumpling every inch of it, until a soft crackle of bending paper reached even his ears and in a quickly descending state of panic the question "How does she know?" managed to only flutter through his brain. Meanwhile, Elizabeth had already wriggled a finger into the garment's lining.

"There's no…," John mumbled, hand reaching for is nape helplessly, "…it's not what it…" Elizabeth had hooked her fingers triumphantly around something and was dragging it out. "I wasn't…," John's desperate attempts to explain the situation away continued, even when Elizabeth was already tilting the piece of thick paper in her hands towards the light to get a better look at it. The glossy surface reflected back a soft beam of light from the night-lamp for a moment and then her movements halted, leaving her to stand motionlessly, staring at the photograph in her hand. It was of her, sitting behind her desk in her office, not working, though, head buried into her computer, but looking somewhere in the distance, at about a 45 degree angle from the camera's vantage point, a sort of wistful, satisfied smile on her face. To the lower margin of the photo John's neat hand had written "THAT'S WHY" in a black permanent marker and the corners of the rectangle were worn, as if somebody's fingers had clutched it by them over and over again. Now both of John's palms had found a way to the back of his head, fingers interlocking in helpless confusion. "I love you…?" he finally offered in a hesitating voice, as it seemed that truth was the only option left.

Not able to tear her eyes away from the photo, Elizabeth absently stated, "I know…" Then, as if suddenly becoming aware of her surroundings again, her head snapped up and her eyes caught John's, just in time for their simultaneous exclamation.

"You do?!"

John was the first one to recover, letting his hands drop and mumbling, mostly to himself, "Well, I guess it's understandable, considering that you knew about… that." He wiggled his finger towards the incriminating evidence in her hand. Elizabeth was still simply staring at him and he could feel a ball of cold panic start to form in the pit of his stomach. "You're completely freaked out by this, aren't you?" he finally let out a very unsoldierly gasp, eyes widening. "Please don't tell me that you want me to leave Atlantis? I promise, I'll be perfectly…" This was hopeless. He couldn't have been expected to do this under these circumstances. Letting out a resigned sigh, he settled for an apologetic self-deprecating puppy-grin. "I am not awake enough right now to beg for my life, Elizabeth," he ended up snorting.

What he had failed to notice in his moments of panic and distress was that Elizabeth had actually shifted closer to him all the time and was now close enough to reach out her hand and lay her fingers on his lips, effectively ending his frantic downward spiral. When he looked up at her face in surprise, the dim light of the night-lamp allowed him to catch something in her eyes that he immediately latched on to for dear life.

"Oh," he breathed, wrapping his fingers around her wrist, the look in his eyes alone seeming to raise the temperature in the room by several degrees. "You too, huh?"

She nodded, the corners of her mouth bending into a dumbstruck grin. The next moment he had hooked the fingers of his free hand to her nape and placed his thumb across her cheekbone, tugging her face towards his and, at the same time, slipping away from her fingertips on his mouth.

"Well, that's a relief," he whispered, flashing her a quick grin before his lips caught hers. The kiss almost immediately turned sloppy and exuberant, the sudden drop of all barriers between them making them almost giddy. His left arm snaked around her waist, dragging her closer to him, while the fingers of her right hand were getting personally acquainted with the soft mess of his hair. Finally breaking apart for air, he leaned his forehead against hers. After a few deep breaths he witnessed her trying to stifle a yawn and fail miserably.

"I'm sorry…," she glanced up at his eyes and smiled bashfully. He chuckled softly, puckering his lips to give a light kiss on the tip of her nose, then straightened and pulled her into a tight embrace, letting his fingers slip into her hair to massage her scalp gently.

"We're not really awake enough for this either, are we?" she could feel him asking, his voice shimmering slightly with contentment and laughter.

"It's been a long…," she tried to explain, getting stuck in determining the time period and distracted by the collar of his t-shirt beckoning enticingly close to her lips.

"… couple of years," he finished for her.

"Yeah," she had to agree. Laughing quietly, she tried to raise her head from his shoulder and almost couldn't pull it off, feeling the sweet tingling warmth of exhaustion running through her limbs. "I'd hate to leave just as it was getting interesting, but…," she tried to keep the inevitable light, but a regretful sigh still managed to slip past her.

"Well, coincidentally…," John began, but was deterred by a big yawn of his own. After having stifled it as quickly as possible, he turned her around in his arms, supporting his chin gently on her shoulder. "I was just about to offer you the best sleep in two galaxies," he said, and started to nudge her towards the bed.

"John, that has got to be one of the narrowest beds in Atlantis," she gave an amused half-hearted protest, feeling his Adam's apple jump against the back of her shoulder as he chuckled.

"As I was saying – the best sleep. Closely overseen by yours truly."

Elizabeth yanked her head to the side incredulously, as if unable to believe his sudden cockiness. He used the opportune angle to surprise her with a quick deep kiss and this added distraction to maneuver them both swiftly into the bed.

"So far, so good," Elizabeth mumbled, shifting herself into a more comfortable position. "I'm still going to have to sneak out of here before the morning rush hour…"

"Shhh," she could feel him weakly admonishing into her hair. "Sleep…"

Their breathing grew steadily deeper and heavier, but just a moment before he managed to completely drop off, he felt her stir in his arms.

"'Lizabeth?" The time the deep growl came in question form.

"Sorry," her voice was already gravelly from sleep. "I forgot."

"Mwha…?" she felt his hot breath in her hair again.

"I love you too. I forgot to say that before."

"Oh," he pulled his head back slightly, trying to get her hair out of his mouth, "right, thanks, now we're even…"

"Well, if you're going be that way about it…," she tried to feign apprehension, but sleep made it all come out in passionless deep monotone.

Settling back to spoon her comfortably, John remembered what had puzzled him most about the way the whole scene had played out. "How did you know about that picture, anyway?"

"My dad…" she replied, barely able to move her lips.

"I'm sorry, I must have dozed off," he sounded genuinely confused. "For a moment there, I thought I heard you say 'my dad'…"

"Nn't was m'dad…," she said in one long sleepy sigh. "Told me… y'look at my mouth… eyes… college football… an'ave picture…" And with that she was truly asleep.

Mumbling, "I'm in love with a crazy woman… but it's all good," he followed her into slumber.


End file.
